In in instant, both people would immediately not just know every thought and action each other has ever had. They would actually have experienced it (as far as they know).

Now, imagine that same technology scaled large enough to “sync” every single person on the planet, for 60 seconds.

Instant Global Awakening.

For geeks, think of:

Telepathy (aka Professor X).

Vulcan Mind Meld.

It’s the same thing, but instead of cool but impossible magic powers (Trust me that would be “Plan A,” but my extensive research of trying to grab the remote control using “The Force,” isn’t looking very promising at the moment.

However, we can invent… and as impossible as this idea sounds, it could be done, with immense R&D, a bottomless pit of money, and a lifetime.

Most (or all) of the people starting the project would never live to see the result, but it would give your life purpose. We’d be building heaven, but never get to go…

What about our kids?

…and theirs?

Randomly thought of that… the same effect is happening with the gradual extinction of privacy, and our ability to instantly communicate.

It’d still be faster, but then you run into:

Is it wrong to force everyone to do something once, if it means putting an end to so much pain? Who gets to make that decision?

Experience Designing the Workplace

A hot topic in modern business, Customer Experience has an equally important cousin: Employee Experience.

What is Employee Experience?

Employee experience is using a blend of psychology, personality types, observable behavior, interests, mental and physical ability, styles of learning, game theory, and gamification to create a custom tailored workplace.

Everything that can be customized to increase a person or group’s effectiveness will be customized.

Quantified Self:

Collecting a person’s blend of individual personality type, observable behavior, interests, preferred style of learning, mental abilities, physical abilities, and experiences is essentially used to create their Quantified Self. This is a new concept called Humanistic Intelligence.

All of these factors are collected by certain tests, mixed with monitoring a person’s activities through the technology they use, along with wearable monitoring devices (to capture things that cannot easily be observed, such as mental or physical stress.

The Layout of the Workplace:

Inspired by Pixar, the entire floor plan of the office is specifically designed to promote accidental, spontaneous collaboration and maximize creativity. However, this takes it one step further, because instead of using rules-of-thumb about human psychology to create the environment, the quantified selves of the actual employees customize what can be customized.

The Software and Equipment Used to Perform the Job:

All the software programs are customized, so that employees intuitively know and clearly understand what is expected of them. By completely “knowing” a person, everything that this person interacts with can be customized to enhance their effectiveness and quality of life.

What About Privacy?

This will be a controversial topic, as this can be seen as an invasion of privacy. In my opinion, it should remain a controversial topic, so that it is constantly being evaluated. This way, we can make sure that the ethics of how such data can be collected and for what purpose is under continual review.

Yes, there is the potential abuse of such data collection. However, that doesn’t mean that it should not be used. There is a chance that I’ll be killed in a car crash on the way to work. That doesn’t mean I should not use a car. However, it does mean that the safety of using automobiles should always be discussed, debated, and improved.

Ultimate Goal:

Essentially, the end goal is making people better at doing their job, while at the same time making it easier and more enjoyable. If done correctly, Employee Experience should be a win-win scenario for the business and the individual.

Making what the employees are supposed to do, what they want to do. Creating an environment custom-tailored to enhance both the effectiveness and enjoyment of the employee.

A Sensors role is to maintain and protect society, and they tend to think in a one-by-one manner, when it comes to concepts.

An intuitive’s role in society is to innovate, design, enhance, invent, and lead during times of great change or chaos. They tend to think about a million different things at the same time, lol.

I like to look at personality types from an evolutionary standpoint.

Personality types evolved into the psyche of individuals, because each type of personality carries out a certain role or function in society. Therefore, it is the mix of all different types, each taking up a certain portion of the population.

Period.

The percentage of a specific type when compared to the entire population is not relevant to how important that type is.

Society, Nature, The World, Time, Magic, God, and Mayor McCheese all combined forces to figure out what society needed to survive, progress, and continue to enhance.

The web is turning writing into a conversation.

Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. Now, the Internet lets people respond, and increasingly they do: in comment threads, on forums, and in their blog posts.

Many who respond to something disagree with it.

That’s to be expected… Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing, and when you agree, there’s less to say.

You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications of that line of thinking. However, when you disagree, you’re entering territory he may not have explored.

The result is there’s a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word.

That doesn’t mean that people are growing angrier. The structural change in the way we communicate is enough to account for it, but even though it’s not anger that’s driving the increase in disagreement, there’s a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier.

This is especially true online, where it’s easy to say things more abrasive than you’d ever say to someone’s face. If we’re all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well.

What does it mean to disagree well?

Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but it would help to name the intermediate stages.

The Disagreement Hierarchy:

DH0: Name-calling.

This is the lowest form of disagreement, and probably also the most common. We’ve all seen comments like this: “u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!”

Also, it’s important to realize that more articulate name-calling has just as little weight. A comment like “the author is a self-important dilettante”
is really nothing more than a pretentious version of “u r a fag.”

DH1: Ad Hominem.

An ad hominem attack is not quite as weak as mere name-calling. It might actually carry some weight. For example, if a senator wrote an article saying that senators’ salaries should be increased, one could respond: “Of course he would say that. He’s a senator.”

This wouldn’t refute the author’s argument, but it may at least be relevant to the case. It’s still a very weak form of disagreement, though.

If there’s something wrong with the senator’s argument, you should say what it is, strait up. If there isn’t, what difference does it make that he’s a senator?

Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem (and a particularly useless sort), because good ideas often come from outsiders.

The question is not whether a person has the credentials or authority to speak about a particular topic. The question is whether the author is correct or not.

If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those mistakes out (do not even refer to his lack of authority — that is irrelevant, only refer to any mistakes). If it didn’t, it’s not a problem.

DH2: Responding to Tone.

The next level up, we start to see responses to the writing, rather than the writer. The lowest form of these is to disagree with the author’s tone. For example: “I can’t believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion.”

Though better than attacking the author, himself, this is still a weak form of disagreement. It matters much more whether the author is wrong or right than what his tone is.

Mainly, tone is just so hard to judge. On the internet, judging tone becomes impossible and very dangerous:

Someone who has a chip on their shoulder about some topic might be offended by a tone that to other readers seemed neutral.

So, if the worst thing you can say about something is to criticize its tone, you’re not saying much. Is the author flippant, but correct? Better that than grave and wrong. If the author is incorrect somewhere, say where.

DH3: Contradiction.

In this stage we finally get responses to what was said, rather than how or by whom. The lowest form of response to an argument is simply to state the opposing case, with little or no supporting evidence.

This is often combined with DH2: Attacking Tone statements, as in: “I can’t believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion. Intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory.”

Contradiction can sometimes have some weight. Sometimes, merely seeing the opposing case stated explicitly is enough to see that it’s right. However, evidence will always help.

DH4: Counterargument.

At level 4 we reach the first form of convincing disagreement: counterargument. Forms up to this point can usually be ignored as proving nothing. Counterargument might prove something. The problem is, it’s hard to say exactly what…

Counterargument is contradiction plus reasoning and/or evidence. When aimed squarely at the original argument, it can be convincing. Unfortunately, it’s common for counterarguments to be aimed at something slightly different.

More often than not, two people arguing passionately about something are actually arguing about two different things. Sometimes they actually agree with one another, but they become so caught up in their squabble that they don’t realize it.

There could be a legitimate reason for arguing against something slightly different from what the original author said: when you feel they missed the heart of the matter. When you do that, however, you should say explicitly that you’re doing it.

DH5: Refutation.

The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation. It’s also the rarest, because it’s the most work. Indeed, the disagreement hierarchy forms a kind of pyramid, in the sense that: the higher you go, the fewer instances you find.

To refute someone, you probably have to quote them. You have to find a “smoking gun,” a passage in whatever you disagree with that you feel is mistaken, and then explain why it’s mistaken. If you can’t find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.

While refutation generally entails quoting, quoting doesn’t necessarily imply refutation. Some writers quote parts of things they disagree with, to give the appearance of legitimate refutation, then follow with a response as low as DH3 or even DH0.

DH6: Refuting the Central Point.

The force of a refutation depends on what you refute. The most powerful form of disagreement is to refute someone’s central point.

Even as high as DH5, we still sometimes see deliberate dishonesty, as when someone picks out minor points of an argument and refutes those. Sometimes the spirit in which this is done makes it more of a sophisticated form of ad hominem than actual refutation:

For example: correcting someone’s grammar, or harping on minor mistakes in names or numbers. Unless the opposing argument actually depends on such things, the only purpose of correcting them is to discredit one’s opponent.

Truly refuting something requires one to refute its central point, or at least one of them. That means one has to commit explicitly to what the central point is.

So, a truly effective refutation would look like:

“The author’s main point seems to be x. As he says: ‘xyz…’ However, this is wrong for the following reasons:

1. Reason 1.
2. Reason 2.
3. Reason 3.”

The quote you point out as mistaken need not be the primary statement of the author’s main point. The quote only needs to be able to refute something that the main point depends upon.

What it Means:

Now, we have a way of classifying forms of disagreement, but what good is it? One thing the disagreement hierarchy doesn’t give us is a way of picking a winner.

DH levels merely describe the form of a statement, not whether it’s correct. A DH6 response could still be completely mistaken.

Although, while DH levels don’t set a lower bound on the convincingness of a reply, they do set an upper bound:

A DH6 response might be unconvincing, but a DH2 or lower response is always unconvincing.

The most obvious advantage of classifying the forms of disagreement is that it will help people to see through intellectually dishonest arguments.

An eloquent speaker or writer can give the impression of vanquishing an opponent, merely by using forceful words. In fact, that is probably the defining quality of a demagogue.

By giving names to the different forms of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping BS balloons.

Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional.

Someone arguing against the tone of something he disagrees with may believe he’s really saying something. Zooming out and seeing his current position on the disagreement hierarchy may inspire him to try moving up to counterargument or refutation.

The greatest benefit of disagreeing well is not just that it will make conversations better, but that it will make the people who have them happier.

If you study conversations, you find there is a lot more meanness down in DH1 than up in DH6. You don’t have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don’t want to. If you have something real to say, being mean actually gets in the way.

If moving up the disagreement hierarchy makes people less mean, that will make most of them happier. Most people don’t really enjoy being mean; they do it because they can’t help it.

I’d like to start discussing individual types and producing individual descriptions now that I’ve covered the fundamentals. This is going to be quite a long process given the amount of detail I am going to go into as I dissect each personality and their traits, functions, potential enneagram types and more (we’ll have a crash course in enneagram shortly). If you don’t see your type or the type of someone you are interested in understanding better, I can take requests; otherwise, I’ll have to go at my own arbitrary speed. Let’s start with ENTPs! That’s what I am so I might as well start this dissection process by dissecting myself (figuratively speaking).

So what exactly is an ENTP? Besides human, typically, ENTPs are Extroverted iNtuitive Thing Perceivers. For those of you that are late to the MBTI party this means they gather their energy from other people, perceive the world…

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In in instant, both people would immediately not just know every thought and action each other has ever had. They would actually have experienced it (as far as they know).

Now, imagine that same technology scaled large enough to “sync” every single person on the planet, for 60 seconds.

Instant Global Awakening.

For geeks, think of:

Telepathy (aka Professor X).

Vulcan Mind Meld.

It’s the same thing, but instead of cool but impossible magic powers (Trust me that would be “Plan A,” but my extensive research of trying to grab the remote control using “The Force,” isn’t looking very promising at the moment.

However, we can invent… and as impossible as this idea sounds, it could be done, with immense R&D, a bottomless pit of money, and a lifetime.

Most (or all) of the people starting the project would never live to see the result, but it would give your life purpose. We’d be building heaven, but never get to go…

What about our kids?

…and theirs?

Randomly thought of that… the same effect is happening with the gradual extinction of privacy, and our ability to instantly communicate.

It’d still be faster, but then you run into:

Is it wrong to force everyone to do something once, if it means putting an end to so much pain? Who gets to make that decision?